1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, a method for correcting luminance degradation, and an electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in the field of display devices for displaying images, flat (flat-panel) light-emitting display devices have rapidly become widespread in which pixels including light-emitting elements serving as electro-optical elements are arranged in a matrix. An example of available light-emitting elements includes organic electroluminescence (EL) elements that utilize a phenomenon of emitting light when an electric field is applied to an organic thin film. The organic EL elements are so-called current-driven electro-optical elements, the light-emission luminance of which changes in accordance with the values of currents flowing through the elements.
An organic EL display device including organic EL elements serving as electro-optical elements has the following features. That is, the organic EL elements can be driven with an applied voltage of 10 V or less and thus the power consumption is low. Since the organic EL elements are light-emitting elements, the organic EL display device has a high image visibility compared to a liquid crystal display device that displays an image by controlling light intensity from a light source in units of pixels in liquid crystal. Also, a lighting unit such as a backlight is unnecessary, and thus the weight and thickness of the device can be easily reduced. Furthermore, the response speed of the organic EL elements is very high at about several μsec, which prevents the occurrence of an afterimage when a moving image is displayed.
Meanwhile, in light-emitting elements, as represented by organic EL elements, the luminance efficiency decreases in proportion to the amount of emitted light and the light emission period. Therefore, in a light-emitting display device, dummy pixels that do not contribute to display are provided as reference pixels on a display panel (substrate) on which effective pixels that contribute to display are provided, and the amount of luminance degradation of the effective pixels is estimated on the basis of the amount of luminance degradation of the reference pixels. Then, the amount of luminance degradation of the reference pixels is detected (measured), and the luminance degradation of the effective pixels is corrected on the basis of the detection result (e.g., see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-240804).